Mary Greene loved the public library and loved gardening. In 1978 she combined those passions into landscaping the grounds of the new Bladen County Public Library in Elizabethtown.
A bench surrounding the crepe myrtle tree at the library’s main entrance was dedicated in Greene’s memory Monday, April 13. The ceremony was attended by about 50 people, including her children C.K. Greene and Honey Hutch Greene Johnson.
Mary Greene, who died in 2016, was a long-time library volunteer and science teacher for Bladen County Schools.
“It’s such a lovely surprise,” Johnson said. “She would be so touched to know her legacy is still going on. She loved this library and she gave it her heart and soul. She would be thrilled and we are very grateful to the Town of Elizabethtown and the Friends of the Bladen County Library.”
The four-sided wooden bench, which has solar lighting attached to posts on each corner, was built by students of Paul R. Brown Leadership Academy under the direction of Bladen Community College’s Lloyd Leggett. The attached plaque reads:
“In Loving Memory of
Mary Hutchison Greene
Beloved Science Teacher
Gardener Extraordinaire
And Devoted Patron Of
Our Precious Little Library”
“Thank you for letting us be a part of this,” Leggett said. “I tell these kids your gift is so important. This is the only bench like this in the world.”
In 1978, Mary Greene went before the Elizabethtown Board of Commissioners to request money to landscape the grounds of the new library on North Cypress Street.
“She had it in her head what she wanted to do,” Johnson said. “Sure enough, she got the money. I don’t know how much it was. She dug up all these plants. She brought all the stuff here. She landscaped it.”
Mary Greene had plenty of help landscaping.
“She would drag us out after school every afternoon and any other children she could recruit,” C.K. Greene said. “We would dig and level out piles of dirt and plant flowers and boxwoods, put down bricks and pine straw and pull weeds. It was something all the time.”
Bladen County head librarian Sheila Nance said, “I think my favorite Mary Greene story is if her students ever got in trouble at school and got detention, she’d send them over here to pull weeds or whatever needed to be done.
“I taught school for 23 years, so I can definitely appreciate that love and that relationship.”
Rufus Lloyd served as one of Mary Greene’s principals during her teaching career.
“Mrs. Greene was so special to me,” Lloyd said. “She had a relationship with the students that was above and beyond. We worked together for years and I just enjoyed her so much.”
At the end, C.K. Greene and Honey Hutch Greene Johnson pulled an orange ribbon and the plaque in their mother’s memory was revealed.
“It’s a great big appreciation to the county and the town to show the appreciation of mom and what she did for the library and the grounds of the library over the years,” C.K. Greene said. “The love they have for her. We’re just so thankful that they recognized her and honored her with a permanent bench.
“She taught three generations of children in Bladen County, taught us and so many of our friends and their children.”
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